


The One Where They Cuddle

by Wolfsheart



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blueberries, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Helicarrier, M/M, Male Friendship, Platonic Cuddling, Science Bros, Sleepy Cuddles, Tony Stark Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6102790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfsheart/pseuds/Wolfsheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Science Bros work long hours trying to figure out Loki's staff's power and hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s computers?  Eventually they get sleepy and need a nap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where They Cuddle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MajorEnglishEsquire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/gifts).



> [Majorenglishesquire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire) asked for Science Bros cuddlefic. Therefore, I will give her Science Bros cuddlefic.

They’d been on the helicarrier for a few hours, each keeping to their own devices, not really speaking much to one another.  Thor took great pains to know more about Agent Phil Coulson, but he was continually finding himself having to defend his brother to Natasha.  Given what he knew about spiders, the name she chose to use in battle certainly suited her.  Steve kept his nose buried at a computer screen, working his way through the files they had on the Tesseract and on Loki and on everything that had happened in New Mexico that had brought the so-called “god” into their midst.  Hawkeye was...well, _perching_ somewhere.  Watching.  Whatever. 

Bruce and Tony had been holed up in the room where they’d really gotten started on what could eventually be called a beautiful friendship.  While Tony downloaded all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files under the pretense of Bruce and him studying up on the Tesseract, he had a chance to observe the other man whose reputation he knew well.  Tony stayed up on worldly news.  Usually.  Or rather, Pepper stayed up on worldly news, and then she told him, and he sometimes remembered snippets of what she’d said. 

However, Bruce he knew about because he was the one sent to General Ross to speak to him about the Avengers Initiative with the express interest in finding the good doctor after he’d smashed most of Harlem with the help of whatever Emil Blonsky had become.  He’d taken a personal interest in Banner because they were both scientists, and Bruce’s green guy came from attempts initially produced during the conjoined efforts of Dr. Erskine and Howard Stark to make Steve what he was, _sans_ the decades spent as a Turbo Rocket. 

The download was taking forever, a lot longer than Tony said it would, and there were only so many ‘How many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents does it take to screw in a lightbulb’ jokes the two men could make up before it became boring, especially because it always wound up with the same conclusion – ‘one because Agent Coulson can do everything on his own, thank you very much’ – and the boys had begun cracking science jokes that only they, on this vessel, would understand.  Once they’d worked their way through the Periodic Table of Elements – ‘How do Sulfur and Oxygen communicate?  A sulfone’, ‘Why do chemists call helium, curium, and barium the healing elements?  Because if you can't helium or curium, you barium’, and their personal favorite given who they were teaming up with (and fighting against) ‘What element is derived from a Norse god?  Thorium’ – Tony finally collapsed onto what passed as a couch in the room, which was nothing more than a long, blank table, probably meant for rolling out old maps or something of the sort, kicked off his shoes, and made himself comfortable. 

“If we’re going to be at this for a while, Bruce, you might as well get comfy,” Tony announced as he dug around in his pocket for his blueberries.  When he couldn’t find them, he lifted his head from his arm, which was cushioning him, and he glanced around as far as his neck would allow him until he spotted them on the console where Bruce was still reading through whatever his download had already pulled up.  “Shit, hey Jolly Green, you might passing me those blueberries?  Unless you’re just that engrossed in whatever nasty secrets you’re finding out about our one-eyed friend, of course.” 

Bruce looked through the information he was reading, finally noticing Tony sprawled on the table.  He didn’t see how that could be comfortable, but then Bruce assumed that Tony made sure that he was comfortable wherever he went, regardless of the others around him. 

“Huh?”  He shook his head to clear it, either from the overload of information that he’d been cramming into his head or from just how easy it was to be around the other man.  Most people tip-toed around him, waiting for ‘the other guy’ to come out, but not Tony.  Even if Tony was worried about ‘the other guy’, he didn’t seem to be worried about it.  “Oh...”  He glanced down and found the small bag of dried blueberries, and he picked them up and walked around the console, holding them at arms’ length almost from five feet away.  “...yeah, here...uh.  That’s a lot of information you’re downloading.  You don’t think Director Fury will figure this out before it’s all here and get pissed?” 

Tony gestured with an outstretched arm but made no movement to even sit up, making Bruce have to walk all the way over to him to hand over the bag.  “To be honest, Bruce, I don’t give a shit.  Fury hasn’t been honest from the start.  You can’t tell me that you were eager to come here and be his puppet.  I might not like what Thor’s horny brother’s up to, but that doesn’t make me automatically like what S.H.I.E.L.D.’s got up its sleeves either.”  Then again, with the way the Star-Spangled Boy Scout booked out of here, he was probably alerting Fury to what he and Bruce were doing. 

Either way, he suspected that neither he nor Banner had slept much in the last twenty-four hours, so a little lie down couldn’t hurt. 

“Do you think I wanted to be disturbed in India, Tony?  I was actually doing some good there...” 

“For you or other people?” Tony interrupted, earning himself a rumpled-puppy dog expression of frustration. 

Bruce moved the rest of the way and dropped the bag of fruit onto Tony’s stomach, the connection of the bag to body making him notice the way the other man’s Black Sabbath t-shirt raised up over that firm stomach.  He shook his head and looked away like that self-same puppy not wanting to be caught doing something he shouldn’t.  It wasn’t even attraction – not _that_ way.  It was just Bruce’s awe that someone with as many reasons to be a rage monster like him could be so calm.  So at ease with his environment, even when everyone else around him was so tightly wound that an orchestra could use them to deliver Mozart’s _Rondo Alla Turca_ without a single flaw.

Tony interrupted his thoughts by returning to his unanswered question.  “Right, you _were_ doing good for others.  And now you’re on this craft filled with master assassins and secret military and aliens and a geriatric do-gooder and some sort of powerful blue-stone mojo that we don’t even understand other than it will kick our asses if we don’t figure out how to work together and do something about it.  And Nick Fury will convince you that what good you were doing in India will be minor compared to ‘saving the world from ultimate evil’.”  He looked up at Bruce to make sure the other man of science was following his rant. 

What surprised Bruce the most was that Tony seemed more pissed for him than he was himself at the moment. 

“You really think that Fury’s got that much to hide?” Bruce asked and managed to stifle a yawn behind his hand. 

“Bruce, I think that our friendly neighborhood Trickster is more open with his intentions than Fury.   We can trust what Loki says more than we can trust Fury,” Tony announced, which earned him a stunned look from Bruce’s weary eyes.  Tony shifted on the work station table that he reclined on, and then he patted the space beside him. 

Bruce stared at that space that had been made for him, and at first, it wasn’t exactly clicking in his mind what he should do with it.  A niggle to one side of his brainpan told him that it was exactly what it looked like and he should take Stark up on his offer.  Another niggle told him that Tony was fucking with him – or maybe he was flirting with him, since everyone knew the man was a walking libido – and Bruce was just tired enough and clinging onto his self-control to know exactly what he should do. 

“Stark, you’re fucked up...pardon my language...if you think that _Loki_ can be trusted more than one of our own,” Bruce finally commented, even as he inched closer to the work table.  He reached into the bag still sitting on Tony’s stomach and fingered out a small amount of the dried blueberries, using the moment to pop each one into his mouth to consider his options.  By the time the last one hit his tongue and was ground between his teeth, Bruce didn’t care anymore what the implications were.

“I won’t pardon your language, Banner.  We’re grown-up men leading grown-up lives, and we can say what we want in each other’s company.  Ol’ Capsicle might blush or threaten to wash our mouths out with soap, but he can suck it,” Tony was saying while he half-lidded his eyes in Bruce’s direction, holding back his smirk when the other scientist finally climbed on board next to him and attempted to find the most comfortable way to lie next to Howard Stark’s only child.  “I’m not going to judge you, Bruce.  Not most of the time anyway.” 

That earned him a bit of laughter that sounded like it came from Bruce’s shoulders finally relaxing.  “You’re an asshole, Tony, but thanks,” he snarked and took the bag of blueberries away from his new friend’s belly. 

Tony squirmed onto his side, grousing at the painful sensation of the not-meant-for-sleeping-on table digging into his hipbone.  Still, he cuddled right up against Bruce and obnoxiously threw his arm across that purple-shirted chest.  “Awwww...thanks, Bruce.  No one’s called me an asshole since...last night when Pepper took off.”  Both men chuckled, and both decided at the same time not to find this weird or awkward. 

*****

When Natasha peeked in on Bruce and Tony, wanting to find out their progress on finding the Tesseract, what she found instead arched one finely shaped red eyebrow right up her forehead.  The boys were snuggled together, eyes closed, each snoring like puppies.  In this instance, Tony was the big spoon, and his hand splayed across Bruce’s chest while both pillowed their cheeks on Tony’s arm. 

They were both covered in dried blueberries. 


End file.
